


Heavy as History Books

by simplyprologue



Series: To All Things There is a Season [7]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Babies, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Happy families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 14:32:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1691714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She’s seen it before, as an embed, but that seems lifetimes ago. The fears aren’t new, but now they’re just chiseling terrible nightmares into the backs of her eyes.</i> History only reminds them that they've placed a very tiny person in a very fragile world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy as History Books

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** For Pip! Who requested that I remind her why toddlers are awesome and not just exhausting and frustrating.

They get home well past 2 AM, finally able to pass coverage off to DC. After thanking one of the many grad students in their deep bench of babysitters, Will and Mac stop in on Charlotte’s room and stare down at the sleeping three year old, who with her thumb in her mouth is blissfully unaware of how the world can come apart in the space of an evening. 

But thankfully not their world. 

However, one of the less generous aspects of innocent children remains to be that they sleep better at night than their parents. Thus exhausted and emotionally drained, Will and Mac look at the clock on the nursery wall and grimace. Pushing the first rundown to two o’clock was more for the staff’s benefit than their own — Charlotte, come hell or high water, will be waking them up at 6 AM. 

The apartment is dark and calm, the soft yellow curtains in Charlotte’s room pulled tightly against the city lights, her green room filled with the soft yellow light of a dimmed lamp. The room is filled with nothing but the sound of the toddler’s tiny exhalations of breath and the quiet ticking of a clock in the shape of a cow, and regardless of their wake up call in four hours, Will and Mac stop to watch their daughter breathe for a few minutes before resigning themselves to bed. 

It takes Mac hours to fall asleep in the aftermath of the day — terrorist attack, dead children whose only sin was having a parent in the military, dead parents in uniform — and Will longer, both their minds racing with the threats collected against them over the years, the few lobbed at Charlotte herself by virtue of being the child of two loudmouths with access to 60 minutes of airtime five days a week. They wind up curled together with half the blankets kicked down around their feet, restless except for their arms around each other. 

When Mac jerks awake shortly after eight, she is met with the distinct and intuitive knowledge that something is  _wrong_. And for a brief moment she panics, the apartment too quiet with light streaming through the windows — Charlotte, with some strange recessive twist of farm-bred genetics, believes that if the sun is up then  _she_  should be up and running and screaming, a trait Mac firmly blames Will for despite the fact he is the least of a morning person. 

"Mummy?" Breathing an audible sigh of relief, Mac flips onto her other side and faces the middle of the bed. 

Will must have brought her into bed. 

Or so she assumes, since he still has Charlotte by a sleep-slacked vice grip against his chest. 

"Hi, honey," Mac murmurs, prying Will’s arms out from around the baby. 

Blonde hair falling every which way out a bun, Charlotte rolls into the space between her parents and opens her arms to her mother. “Big news day?” 

(Mac realizes, for a time when she is less tired, that she should be slightly concerned at her three-year-old’s rather adept usage of newsroom jargon.) 

"Huge," she answers, trying to brush the images on the live feed of toddlers covered in blood. (She’s seen it before, as an embed, but that seems lifetimes ago. The fears aren’t new, but now they’re just chiseling terrible nightmares into the backs of her eyes.) Instead focuses on taking Charlotte’s hair out of her irreparable bun, and braiding it. 

Charlotte is three, and doesn’t ask her mother any questions about her personal safety. Because Charlotte is three, and trusts them implicitly and unconditionally, which occasionally terrifies them. But, Mac supposes, yesterday she was reminded that there are worse people for her baby to trust. 

"TV, please, Mumma?" Charlotte asks, gripping her chubby fingers into the sheets to pull herself into Mac’s side. 

Mac kisses the top of her head. “You’re not hungry?” 

"Daddy got me Cheerios." 

And Mac is certain she will find the evidence on Will’s side of the bed. Or, as a quick glance confirms, just on Will in general. Laughing quietly, she gropes around for the TV remote, quickly turning it on and away from the ACN coverage to Disney Junior. And for once, their little ball of sunshine and potentially nuclear energy is content to lay and watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so Mac lets her eyes drift back closed with her nose pressed to Charlotte’s sweet-smelling hair.

"I love you, Mummy," she says, out of the blue. But toddlers are known for out of the blue, and sometimes not in the "I painted the kitchen wall" way, so Mac’s going to ride this morning’s peace for as long as she can, with her sweet (for now) daughter and dead-to-the-world husband.

"I love you too, sweetheart." 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
